Web radio stalwart Live365 lays off staff, may close in New Year

Internet radio network Live365 has laid off a "significant" portion of its staff and may have to shut shop in the New Year if it fails to get funding. The web radio show favourite said new royalty rates set by the Copyright Royalty Board will no longer make provisions for small webcasters to opt for a percentage of the rates …

[chivo243]

Live365

That takes me back! Way back! When I had extra time to listen to music, Live365 turned me onto a lot of new artists.

May help come in the 11th hour!

[Anonymous Coward]

I recall many a happy hour checking out the Goth and 'Alternative' stations on Live 365, and encountered a few bands I likes that I;d never heard of before as a result. It'd be a crying shame if it went under.

[x 7]

Who?

[JeffyPoooh]

This has wider implications...

There are some Internet Radios, of the stand-alone desktop or bedside table hardware type, that rely upon Live365 to power their index. If Live365 goes titsup, and the index goes offline, then the lovely hardware becomes landfill. Many haveGUIs that do not offer any alternative option.

One "solution" might be to glue a cheap tablet to the 'Radio', and connect it to the Aux input.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Live365" set to die during a leap year?

[x 7]

Microsoft will buy the company and save it

After all, "live" and "365" are two of their trademarks........................

[dkingsbo]

We can thank our congress with passing legislation to eliminate small radio and Internet broadcasters and favor large corportions whow can shell out the big bucks to pay royalties . These are small business owners who love to play good music and live what they are doing.

[JeffyPoooh]

"...thank our congress..."

Why aren't all these streaming companies moving to some offshore Copyright Free Zone? Some country that doesn't GAF; there are at least several.

Is there an open, non-propriety ENCRYPTED streaming audio protocol, kinda like https (except for streaming audio)?

End-to-end encryption, supported by ads, no royalties. Seems trivially obvious.

[WonderlandW&G]

Re: "...thank our congress..."

You realize that a lot of the smaller companies and such are non profit and can not move to the countries that don't pass rules such as this

[pewpie]

So be it.

Happy Harry Hardon will return.

Talk hard.

[Anonymous Coward]

Webmaster Settlement Act of 2009

The ending of the Webmaster Settlement Act of 2009 (WSA) is what's prompting this.

The CRB is effectively irrelevant. The rate difference is insignificant; The rate difference is not where the change is coming from. This focus on the CRB and rates inherently mis-frames the problem at hand. It is intrinsically dishonest distraction.

The CRB was designed to address classic/terrestrial radio: singular physical radio-wave broadcast stations, with captive local ad markets, and survey guesses of listener bases. In stark contrast, internet radio/webcasting may have 1-5000 'channels', with no captive ad market support, and exact precise counts of users. As the business environment is contextually different between these, the WSA permitted internet radio to be excluded from the CRB-physical radio designs.

With the removal of the WSA, internet radio will now pay the way physical radio does. But it isn't. And it can't. Pandora, which has never turned a profit and is the largest player, will go under. It is a mathematical certainty.